


( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

by adjuvantQasida



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, POV Outsider, this fic is rated T but may not make much sense w/o its E rated friend, watch me have messed up the tense somewhere in here rip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 20:52:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11089695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adjuvantQasida/pseuds/adjuvantQasida
Summary: From on top of the castle walls, a gossip and an overthinker hear a voice...





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [honestground](https://archiveofourown.org/users/honestground/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Devotion, or, (tr)eat your queen right ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/295983) by honestground. 



> Fair warning, I have not been able to play this game yet (and may never get to), so instead I've just been consuming 8000 pounds of youtube videos on it. And, you know, stewing in jealousy.
> 
> Anyway, I found honestground's fics, and then I found their tumblr, and then I left 87 prompt things in their askbox and they actually wrote one of them!!! So here is my fic of their fic, starring my greatest weaknesses: humorous misunderstandings, outsider POV, too much internal thought, and weird descriptions of magic stuff.
> 
> This probably isn't going to make any sense without reading the fic they wrote. It's got sex in it! It's rated M or E probably! Just, you know, a heads up. (Also, if you enjoy their fics on AO3, they have more on their tumblr they haven't posted. Definitely go read those.)

It’s a great honor to be part of the Royal Guard. Maybe it’s less of an honor now than it was one hundred years ago, but so what? One hundred years ago they were gearing up for war. Now, they’re rebuilding.

Byatri’s shift on the outer walls begins at noon and ends when the moon is at its highest. It’s been like that since those walls were completed, her in her armor with her weapons and her spyglass. Honestly, it’s not very eventful, but it’s work that needs to be done, and the captain likes to run a tight ship. He at least makes the rounds every so often to check in on them and talk a bit.

He’s with her at sundown when they hear the voice.

The sun is barely on the horizon. There’s a little bit of a breeze, and she can hear crickets chirping in advance of the night. Laid out before her is Hyrule in all its splendor, green grass waving, sky shading salmon and blush pink. Out on the southwest road she can see movement off in the distance. As she hears the captain coming up the stairs to her left, she puts the spyglass to her eye. It’s the Princess Zelda and her knight. The person they’ve all sworn to protect, and the person who finally rescued her.

“Give me a look, Byatri?” the captain says in his gruff voice. When she hands over the spyglass, he takes a look, then _hmmm_ s under his breath. “Back from the Temple of Time, then.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I suppose we’d better start planning for a coronation, then,” he says. “The Princess was thinking very hard about something, this morning. And I hear the Temple is finished.”

The whole castle has heard the Temple’s been finished, because the head footman is an inveterate gossip and he’s got a brother in the construction crew there. Byatri opts not to say anything. It’s pretty clear to anyone who spends much time in the inner workings of Hyrule Castle that Princess Zelda has very little interest in the trappings of ruling, and just as obvious to anyone who spends much time outside of it that the populace desperately wants her to be queen.

“He looks a little distracted,” he says about Sir Link, and hands over the spyglass.

Honestly, she can’t tell from this distance. The Hero of Hyrule’s facial expressions are very difficult to read, and she has a hard enough time with her comrades’ faces, when she sees them every day. The Princess, on the other hand, looks absolutely radiant. She settles for another “yes, sir.”

“I wonder what needed both of them at the Temple,” her captain mutters, just loud enough that he knows she’ll hear. She is coming to realize that there is more than one inveterate gossip among the castle staff. “It was only ever used for ceremonies, you know. Calamity Ganon arrived the day she came of age, and I don’t know that they were ever sealed together.”

At Byatri’s blank look - sealed together? - he starts to elaborate. “There used to be ceremonies meant to tie the head knight of the guard to his charge. My father’s father told me they were used to cement loyalty, but with the actual Princess and Hero, who knows what kind of fate is involved?”

Dramatic as he sounds, he does have a point. They live in a world remade by a glowing golden light, wielded by a girl who was seventeen for a hundred years. Sometimes the Princess or Sir Link will respond as if a third person was speaking, one that only they can hear. Twice, the guard has camped at the entrance to the Lost Woods. The Princess and the Hero walked in, and they could hear them speaking as if to old friends as their footsteps faded into the forest, echoed by strange, high almost-voices…

Byatri lets herself wonder, just for a minute. What did they say to each other? Did they need to say anything? She walked into the Temple of Time and felt the heavy presence of fate there herself. The statue of Hylia almost felt like another person. Perhaps they stood with her and talked, the three of them. Maybe they sang, the way she’d heard Sir Link sing once, high and half-wild, the land of Hyrule lying underneath the sound.

It wasn’t for them to see. Too solemn. Too weighty…

The captain interrupts her thoughts suddenly, grabbing for the spyglass. She twitches a little in shock, but he’s busy putting it up to his face so hard she has to wince. “His horse - she shied?” After another moment, he swore and shoved it back into her hands. “Go on, look! My eyes are too old.”

It’s quickly apparent that the fault’s not with the horse. It’s with the rider. Even Byatri can decipher this expression. Sir Link’s mouth has dropped open, his eyes are wide, he’s almost dropped the reins. She blinks, then focuses her attention on the Princess, who’s smiling fondly at him. When she switches her attention back, it’s almost too late to see his mouth form the word “yes.”

“Well?” demands her captain.

Then they are driven to their knees. The voice is a woman’s, but a hundred hundred women’s. It is rock and water. It is revelation and fate, hope and inevitability in one.

It says, sweetly, **“My blessings to you both.”**

That night, Princess Zelda announces her engagement.

**Author's Note:**

> My girlfriend is super tired and doesn't know what I'm writing, so she wants me to title this "Anger in the Abyss." I just wanted to put this here for future reference. Handy.


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